


Three Words

by Nicole Crucial (moilArchitect)



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Future, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-05
Updated: 2012-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 16:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/333690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moilArchitect/pseuds/Nicole%20Crucial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow it is always three words that manage to invoke the greatest emotion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Someday

Somehow it is always three words that manage to invoke the greatest emotion.

_"Until next time."_   
_"Please don't go."_   
_"I hate you."_   
_"I love you."_   
_"Please come back."_   
_"Don't let go."_   
_"Stay with me."_   
_"Leave, or else."_   
_"I'm so sorry."_   
_"Please forgive me."_

There are a million phrases, and each has a different meaning, and each _three_ has a special way of punching her in the gut.

Two years ago, the three words that had ruled Sango's world in explosions of joy and sobs of relief, were:

"He is _free._ "

They were there, always, and they made every sacrifice worthwhile, redeemed everything she had done, replaced all that had been lost. Even when three other words, this time from his mouth instead of hers, came back to haunt her:

"I don't remember."

And it broke her heart a little, it did. But when Naraku was dead--truly, undeniably dead, though it had taken far too long--and her brother was free at last--even if he didn't remember certain things (everything important)--

Somehow, it made those words okay.

So when he said them, Sango just smiled and shook her head and told him, "Someday, you will."

Someday hasn't come yet.


	2. Incomplete

It isn't long--in fact, it's a dizzyingly short amount of time--before the siblings find themselves settling in a village near Kaede's. It has always been Sango's dream to return to the village of the demon slayers, to begin to rebuild it, to make new the life they had once led there.

But she takes him there once, and sees him frown solemnly, so innocently, at the neat rows of graves. She thinks suddenly that he looks incomplete.

Three more words that score deep lines in her heart; and blood wells once again.

"Who were they?"

She takes him back to Kaede's. The next time she returns to the village, to groom the graveyard it has become, she comes alone and feels the weight on her heart all too heavily.

"He won't remember," she tells them. Uncles, aunts, cousins, friends; the graves of the troupe of slayers she had almost died with is miles away, overgrown already. "But that's alright."

Finally, when she leaves and returns to him, she whispers to the wind, "Maybe it's better."


	3. De Ja Vu

Some days she knows that it's better. Years had passed in her search to free him (years that made him lose the few memories he had left because she was too late, _too late_ ), and by now he is even taller than her, his childlike features dissolving into angles and planes. Handsome, and grown-up, and increasingly proficient with his weapons, and she isn't _ready._

But he still smiles like the twelve-year-old she used to know, and that is enough.

"It's always enough."

And it is. Because she loves him unconditionally. And because even if he doesn't remember--even if the only connection he tangibly remembers having of her is that her face haunted him always when he was under Naraku's control--he is still her brother.

If he doesn't remember all the blood on his hands, it is better. If he doesn't remember the guilt she used to see haunting his boyish smiles, it is better.

"It is better," she reminds herself.

"What is it?" he asks innocently, and his voice is so deep now, and her heart breaks a little. Sixteen, she thinks, and then she realizes in surprise that that makes her past twenty--a spinster, practically--and she wonders where the years have gone.

Meanwhile, she smiles and doesn't answer, and instead, tells him a story about their childhood. He listens, leans back agains the walls in their hut, and feels the taste of "ane-ue" with de ja vu familiarity on his tongue.

"De ja vu."

That's all he has now.

Her heart breaks.


	4. Happy

"I am happy," he assures her one day out of the blue.

And Sango smiles, brushes back hair that grows longer and longer with each anniversary. She hasn't cut it since their mother died. He doesn't know this, but she thinks he has figured it out. He tends to do that, with little things. The tiniest nuances are the ones he understands the most, and he doesn't know why, but she does (because they are reminders of tragedies, and because she makes them that way, living memories). Just as well, since she'd never dare to tell him that.

"Of course, brother," she replies. "I know that."

He says with that same smile--except it's not as innocent as she remembers, because he's too grown up for that kind of innocence anymore--"No you don't."

He's right.

She goes back to the laundry.

"I just... worry," she tells him finally. He feels empty to her, sometimes. Chained.

"I know that," he replies. A mirror, an echo, like the familial resemblance in the features on their faces. Like a theatrical effect in one of Kagome's movies or plays: one happy reflection, and one sad one.

She's not the happy one.


	5. Perfect

"I'm getting married."

His grin is huge, and crooked, and so different from the one she remembers from years ago.

She is shell-shocked, she can't breathe. She doesn't know why. Her brother is handsome, he is sweet, he is charming--if a little timid, though he's been outgrowing some of that as all children do. Her brother is everything a girl could want.

"I'm so proud," she whispers, and tears fill her eyes and she flings her arms around him.

"Thank you, Ane-ue," he says modestly. Then he realizes that she is shaking, sobbing silently into his shoulder.

He repeats her name and she sobs harder, and the embrace changes from one of happiness to a hold of comfort.

"Ane-ue, what's wrong?"

She wants to tell him. She wants to tell him that he's growing up and she's not ready, that she wants to reclaim the years of their adolescence that they should've spent growing and learning--the years that she spent searching and fighting, that he spent mindless and dead. She wants to tell him that she always imagined this announcement in her head to be told first to their father (even earlier dreams had placed their mother in the scene, too). She wants to tell him how if things hadn't fallen apart, there would be uncles and aunts and cousins, crowded around, squealing with joy, congratulating him. She wants to tell him how she tried and failed to be the family he's forgotten.

She wants to tell him, because she knows he doesn't realize that that was the first time in years he ever called her "ane-ue," though he's been doing it in his head far longer.

She wants to be a child, to scream and hold onto him, to tell him that he's the last thing that matters, to beg, "please don't leave," or worse yet, "she'll take you."

These are not things that a Sango in her right mind would say.

Instead, she stretches the truth. "I'm so happy," she says to him to explain the tears, pulling back with a lump in her throat, wiping her eyes. He looks like he's about to inquire further, and she feels terrible for ruining his announcement.

"Who is she?" Sango asks, and the magic is restored (a little lackluster). Kohaku eagerly tells her that it's none other than Rin, and proceeds to gush about her the way only a man in love can to the only family member and confidant he has.

And after an hour, three cups of tea, and a gathering around the hearth in their hut (soon to be Rin's hut, too), he ends with a happy sigh.

"She's perfect, ane-ue."

"She really is," Sango whispers back.


	6. Free

In time the clawing panic leaves, and she is able to breathe again, and to be ashamed of her outburst. She is truly happy for the young couple. And she is wistful, because it means another part of her brother lost. Kohaku is happy, and that's what matters.

But he is still her brother. And she will love him, no matter how many pieces of his heart he chooses to give away (as is his right).

The wedding is big, because both Rin and Kohaku are well-liked and Rin is especially outgoing, and Inuyasha and Kagome and their kids and Miroku and Shippo and Kaede all trek over to be a part of the ceremony.

And Sango has to keep repeating things to herself. Mostly, that her brother is already seventeen, and that he is getting married, and that maybe this time next year, she'll be an aunt.

It's a dizzying prospect.

He manages to find her among the crowd after the ceremony, separating himself from his wife. And like it always has, the rest of the world fades just a little when she's with Kohaku, because he has been her most important person since forever.

He pulls her into a hug, and Sango can't speak or she'll burst into tears.

"I love you," he reminds her in a whisper, almost shyly. Sango nods against his shoulder, squeezing him tighter than she ever has. He's so big. And he's so happy. Happier than she ever could've hoped he'd be.

And then--then--she lets go, and smiles bravely, and watches him amble off to greet the others.

She knows she's not just letting go of him physically, either.

"Goodbye, little brother," she whispers when he's far enough that he can't hear.

She lets go of everything. She lets go of the memories, of her need to be needed by him, of the hopes that someday, he'll wake up and remember. She lets go of the guilt that she is holding for him because he can't carry it, and of the guilt she carries herself. She lets go of her friends and family from the village, sets their memories free--not as spirits to be avenged--but as people, who lived, and who died, and who were loved. She lets go of 'little brother,' because he's not little anymore. She lets go of everything that made him her everything, because it's time.

He doesn't need her anymore, and Sango knows it. Her heart breaks a little, and she scrambles to try and remember what it's like not to live for another person. She feels hollow, and empty, but the wistfulness--the jealousy--the hurt, and the longing never to be satisfied, and the painful burdens of memories for hundreds carried on the shoulders of one--it all evaporates. She feels hollow and raw and clean. She feels light.

She feels terrible and unwhole and she feels amazing and new.

Sango hugs herself a little and stares up at the sky. He will always be her brother, and she will always love him unconditionally. He will always be the person that she once existed wholeheartedly for.

Today, the three words that always haunt her don't mean holding on. They mean letting go. They mean, not a punch to the stomach, but the dissolution of an ache in her chest.

Today, three words mean a gift she's never before let him have, even though she was the one that won it for him. A gift that he's always asked for, without knowing it. A gift that, she knows in a sudden, weeping instant, has been the key all along to the memories he's never recovered, to the life he's never lived, and to the completeness he's never had.

Today, she looks at him from across the meadow, and she says aloud--for anyone to hear:

"Kohaku, you're free."


End file.
